World Food Day 2011Take Action For Children

I was born in Niger and I grew up between Niger and an oasis in the Sahara Desert. Water and food have always been important issues in my community. I used to walk five times a day to fetch water and food was very scarce during my childhood in the oasis.

I run an Amnesty Youth Club. I teach teenagers about important issues, such as lack of water, hunger, child labor, human rights, death penalty, empower women, and many other subjects. 

I am enrolled in the Hunger and Agriculture Griot Course launched by One and WFP. 

 

This fall, One and WFP-USA and the Griot students are campaigning for foreign assistance funding in the Cogressional Budget for Fiscal Year 2012. 

Lincoln said, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

I believe that by educating students about hunger, importance of water, and human rights issues, they will be ready to fight for a brighter future. 

 The students and I are selling bags  made locally by an artisan. These bags are made with local fabric and on the bags we can read, 1 sac = 15 repas (1 bag = 15 meals). 

 The students and I will donate the money to a school in a remote rural area where most of the students do not go to school because they are hungry.

In this area, they prefer to work in the fields instead of going to school. 

With the money,we will offer one school meal a day in order to attract more students to school. If we can do it for 3 months, it will be wonderful! 

Capoeira: The silent language of gestures!

My son (16)  has been practising capoeira for almost one year and he loves it!

My son has a great capoeira's mestre called Fassasi. They have a roda every Sunday from 8:30 to 11:30.

The MESTRE or teacher called Fassasi opened a school of capoiera in Cotonou, Rep of Benin. 

Capoeira is an acrobatic, danced game done to distinctive vocal and instrumental music. Derive from African challenge dances and shaped by slavery in Brazil, Capoeira has become today a form of physical education and martial art around the world.

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines dance movements, acrobatics, fighting, music, history, and philosophy. After the abolition of slavery, Capoeira continues to develop as an instrument of resistance and freedom, serving as a political weapon against repression and a tool to retain African traditions and philosophies.

In a Capoeira JOGO, two players strive to outmaneuver, trip, or knock each other to the ground using a wide array of kicks, head butts, leg sweeps, and evasive maneuvers. 

My son has learned to balance aggression with a need to demonstrate dexterity, creativity, and artistic flair in response to changes in music provided by a small orchestra. 

My teenager has learned to play the berimbau. Since he knew how to play the guitar, it was not difficult for him to master the berimbau. The berimbau has an unusual timbre produced by striking a rod and a ring or coin on a metal string attached to a bow with a resonating dried gourd.

To learn capoeira, my son watched carefully experienced players, trying to copy techniques, rehearsing movements over and over again until he became very good at capoeira, and in turn, he is becoming a model for other novices. 

He tends to learn the art's movements and musical techniques by seeing and doing them rather than by talking about them. He learned through one-on-one instruction, observation, and self-guided practice with his Mestre Fassasi.

Imitative learning in capoeira is facilitated by what educational theorist Lev Vygotsky called "more capable peers." The more knowledgeable other serves as both model and instructor."

Through the art of capoeira, my son is able to see life's injustices and at the same time he can offer a strategy with which to confront them. 

Capoeira is a celebration of life in bodies that suffer from oppression, an expression of freedom which allows the poor to feel rich and the weak, strong! 

In Brazil, African slaves practiced the martial art in a clandestine fashion, as a form of cultural celebration and self-defense on plantations. 

Today, capoeira is open to people of all ages, genders, nationalities and ethnicities.